The French don't need Whippets!!

Cool video of north face Aguille du Midi ski.
After watching it I had an overpowering desire to send him a couple of whippet ski poles because I got scared just watching it.
Very French  ... but very cool.

www.sebmontaz.com/

Agreed.
Very cool.
(but I would send them Claws )

Our local super star has been skiing there recently too:
colinhaley.blogspot.com/ may have a video in there somewhere.

April 19th, "The Y couloir and bad incident" is crazy...

Our local super star has been skiing there recently too:
colinhaley.blogspot.com/    may have a video in there somewhere.

Interesting stories on Colin's blog. Two could-have-been-fatal steep ski accidents in less than a week. I noted this statement: "I had already felt that extreme skiing was much more dangerous than climbing, and although the outcome of the incident was benign it was an eye-opener to me of how serious even a 'via normale' of extreme skiing can be."

On the subject of whippets, it seems like they wouldn't be too valuable on the conditions shown in the Aiguille du Midi video. I think whippets are most useful to stop a slip on knife-hard snow. Refrozen corn snow is ideal. The conditions on the Midi video appear to be either soft new snow or hard ice. Any fall would probably be a tumble rather than a slide. Whippets probably wouldn't help in many places there.

Watching the scenes of scratching over and between rocks on skis, the phrase "Conquistadors of the Pointless" comes to mind. Colin's stories reinforce it.

The phrase comes from the title of Lionel Terray's book " Les conquerants de L'inutile" in english
"The conquistadors of the useless."

He is one of my heros.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Terray